The Super Hornet's F100 or the F135. With the F135 at least it would be "ready" for the future AETP engine.

Probably a brain-fart but the Super Hornet uses the F414, which in a non-afterburning configuration would be too small. However, the USN does have experience with the F110 in the F-14D, and the F118 (used in the B-2) is a non-afterburning version of that engine.

Yep - thx.

Thought about the F-14 but it's been over 10 years. That expertise is gone.

Not sure it has to lose the afterburner. The point is to make it as simple, logistically, as possible.

The White House Office of Management and Budget wants the Defense Department to give “special focus” to missile defense, hypersonic weapons, autonomous and space-based systems as well as other technologies when drawing up research and development investments for fiscal year 2019, according to a recent memo.

This article about the work of British mathematicians who worked with the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough and the other research stations during WW1 might be of interest to some. Some aspects have been covered in books, but its a relatively little-covered area.

I get the impression that talk and powerpoints move careers, and if you stretch a program long enough maybe you'll be able to move to the next fantasy project before you actually have to risk failure by performing.

If true, that approach will have all sorts of deleterious effects. For one, any engineer who wants to see their projects succeed (i.e. the best) are going to go to companies which actually develop new vehicles. The shining example here is SpaceX, which has developed launch vehicles at a rate which ULA cannot hope to emulate. I could imagine that there's a steady brain drain of top talent from defense contractors to non-defense companies. Better to see something fly than have the high-tech projects take a decade, then be cancelled.

Yep.

I've made the same comment on the nuclear enterprise. Hey want to take get your PhD in nuclear physics and then never work on a new design or weapon or ever test anything for the next 30 years?

I get the impression that talk and powerpoints move careers, and if you stretch a program long enough maybe you'll be able to move to the next fantasy project before you actually have to risk failure by performing.

If true, that approach will have all sorts of deleterious effects. For one, any engineer who wants to see their projects succeed (i.e. the best) are going to go to companies which actually develop new vehicles. The shining example here is SpaceX, which has developed launch vehicles at a rate which ULA cannot hope to emulate. I could imagine that there's a steady brain drain of top talent from defense contractors to non-defense companies. Better to see something fly than have the high-tech projects take a decade, then be cancelled.

I get the impression that talk and powerpoints move careers, and if you stretch a program long enough maybe you'll be able to move to the next fantasy project before you actually have to risk failure by performing.

If true, that approach will have all sorts of deleterious effects. For one, any engineer who wants to see their projects succeed (i.e. the best) are going to go to companies which actually develop new vehicles. The shining example here is SpaceX, which has developed launch vehicles at a rate which ULA cannot hope to emulate. I could imagine that there's a steady brain drain of top talent from defense contractors to non-defense companies. Better to see something fly than have the high-tech projects take a decade, then be cancelled.